


Identity

by thedevilchicken



Category: The 13th Warrior (1999)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:42:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1629662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps he's not one of them but there are times he knows he wishes he were.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Identity

**Author's Note:**

> This is very much based on the movie and not the Michael Crichton book the movie was based on. Includes some very, very mild Ahmed/Herger slash, though it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference.
> 
> Written for wolfsnc for Yuletide 2008.

 

 

His name is Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, Ibn Al Abbas, Ibn Rashid, Ibn Hamad. He is a poet and a scholar, now a diplomat though he knows he is the latter by means of punishment alone. The position he holds is indicative of neither merit nor his choice, though he does still feel the pull of duty. 

This was never what he had intended - the painted eyes of a woman who was never his have exiled him here, far from the comfort of his old life, an unwilling envoy to the savage North where his people rarely venture and the value of a diplomat is dubious at best. It's bitter there, a cold he did not exactly anticipate, did not realise existed in the world despite all of the accounts he read, all of the hours he spent in the city's libraries before his departure, reading texts that told him just how this would be. He's learning day by day that words in books are not the equal of experience as he'd once liked to think; he never knew a chill could seep into his bones the way it has here, down deep inside until he feels a shiver comes almost as welcome relief. He misses sand and sun. He misses home. 

These days he finds that sleep is a long time coming. He lies awake on the dirt floor there, under the high, damp rafters of King Hrothgar's hall; the first few nights when he closed his eyes all he saw was home, the haze of heat hanging there in the air over minarets and sprawling palaces, and that unsettled him. Then there was the ship, their long voyage played out again behind his eyes in all its detail, stormy seas and the sickness he'd felt so deeply just because he'd been so certain that they'd die there on the water. He's learned since then he never knew what terror was before this, his sheltered life no preparation for this time and place where maybe drowning could have seemed a mercy in comparison to battle. Now he doesn't dream, has to wonder if they've all burned out or if he's just forgotten how to dream amongst the cold and blood and earth. Still, sleep remains elusive even when he knows he's pushed on past the point of absolute exhaustion. He lies awake at night, his hands settled at his chest to rise and fall with his steady breath, and thinks. 

He knows that men are men the whole world over, that the only difference significant of anything at all is their divergent culture even if its influence is vast. Still, the men he's met here are unlike any he has ever known. He supposes they are made this way by their harsh landscape, by their land, by the long, hard winters, the forests and old gods. His companions tell him this place reminds them of their home, that before the Wendol came this village would have been so very different to the way they've found it - smaller than the home of Buliwyf's ancestors but the structure would be much the same. He's piecing together a picture of it daily, scraps of information gleaned from all his conversations, snatches of tales overheard: the king's hall that sits on the hill above the town, the market, the river where Rethel taught his grandson how to fish, the forests where Edgtho's father showed him tracking, where Roneth's sister died last winter. It's like nowhere that he's seen, like nowhere that he's been and nothing like his home. He thinks he'd like to see it, if they leave here with their lives. At this point, nothing at all is certain. He thinks now that could be the true nature of terror. 

Of course, he sees the king's son and he knows that while he's far from the city of his birth, from the stone of the buildings, the gleam of the sun over domes and high arches, at heart men are all alike. Perception and perspective may differ from place to place but jealousy it seems is universal. Strangely, it's a thought that comforts him there in the dark. These aren't his people but human motivation remains constant. 

There's a steady drip of rainwater that leaks from the roof somewhere nearby, the sound of the splash against the floor so rhythmic it should lull him into sleep. All it does instead is bring a clearer focus to his mind: he listened and he learned their language; in just that manner he watches them through the day and he learns their life. Today he's worked with Skeld and Weath, wheedled out somehow from Skeld how it felt to have the needles press in that tattoo across his face, what Weath is doing there amongst these men, fighting with them when they're not his people either. The redhead just laughed and shook his head like it was all so obvious it was hardly worthy of a response, but as they hammered in the pikes he told him all about his wife and daughter waiting for him back in Buliwyf's town. When he told him about the place he'd been born, Ahmed found it difficult to trace a difference between this place and that, and he still does - Weath isn't even sure he could find the place again, he says, the small coastal town that lies miles away, half a continent away, with its small houses, hills and valleys and rivers that Ahmed's own country has in nothing like such an abundance. Here, he sees it all around.

Around the hall, the others are sleeping. He looks over them in the firelight as his back aches from the floor and their work through the day, sleeping there fully clothed and more than one in something close to full armour, their swords and their knives at their side. Helfdane likes to say a man must treat his sword like he treats his woman but Herger laughs at that analogy, all smiling eyes as Helfdane mutters, the same amused half-insult each and every time. Rethel likes to keep his arrows close - Ahmed has never seen an aim like his and doubts he will again. And Buliwyf, he sleeps lightly, his hand on the hilt of the sword his father gave him, that they say he's carried as long as he's been strong enough to bear arms. He was likely stronger in his youth than Ahmed ever will be, a warrior-king the way the caliph of Ahmed's home has never been. Herger says the sword will burn with Buliwyf at his death, as his father's did with him; he remembers the pyre, is still trying to understand it and the strange events that have brought him here though he suspects he never will. 

Buliwyf is a good man, he thinks, and a good king. He sees the world in a way the others don't, looks at Ahmed and sees something that is other, that is foreign to him but to be neither feared nor scorned, that represents a skill his people lack. When Ahmed speaks with him he listens, understands at least in part the things he has to say. Ahmed is a poet and a scholar, he can tell him the names of the stars in the sky if that's what he wants, and Buliwyf listens. After dark, apart from the rest, they sketch words in the sand and Buliwyf surprises him, as he did tonight; the adaptation of Ahmed's script to the language of the North was unexpected, a complexity there that Ahmed hadn't suspected since frankly he'd thought that Buliwyf, for all his talent, had learned the words only by rote. It was far from perfect, unsurprising to him given the gap between their two tongues, but there it was: their words lay in the sand, written down to be read back before Buliwyf scratched them out. 

He thinks of Buliwyf as he lies there, and the things he could do were he given the chance. Freed from the old superstitions of his people, Ahmed imagines a king of great power and great wisdom far beyond that of his fathers. He imagines Buliwyf's hall and the things that could be there once gods and oracles are set aside, once science is raised up in their place. There's no reason he can find that this land cannot see the progress of his own; there could be great cities in the place of these handfuls of farmsteads bound together there so loosely, advances in thought and not just warfare though in that respect they are quite skilled. He sees Buliwyf could take them there, or set them on the road at least. He'd go with them, help them if they asked, though he doubts they will. But still, he hopes.

Herger sleeps beside him, clasping the hilt of his sword like a child's favourite toy. Ahmed feels closer to him than to any of the others but there's as much distance there as there is common ground - their gods are not the same though they're both men of faith; they both value intellect but Herger's is ever more practical than esoteric. They sit aside from the rest and talk sometimes, a break from work over the crude but filling food they're served while Buliwyf talks with the king in his hall. Herger learned Latin many years ago, he says, at the order of Buliwyf's father, remembers it now in only a crude kind of pidgin that they use mostly for trade. Ahmed is not above learning a few words, fascinated by their feel, by the way that this and Herger's language seem both similar and disparate with their smattering of common roots. He thinks when he goes home he'll learn it too, wonders if Melchisidek who could teach him has arrived home safe by now. He hopes to join him there one day, and soon.

He feels closer to Herger than to any of the others, feels him lift his spirits when he takes the time to talk; he does like to talk, even if it seems beneath it all there's a kind of weary resignation. He's been at Buliwyf's side for years, he's told, his friend and his lieutenant, brave and loyal to a fault and Ahmed can see that in him, even when he loses himself in the drink. Herger caught him in the dark one of those nights, kissed him and laughed that bright laugh; though Ahmed blustered, taken aback, it was far from a protest. The taste of mead, the tickle of his beard, it was strange but not unwelcome; nothing here can lend him hope as Herger can. Buliwyf is the one who asks about his home, who despite his hard exterior and distance is eager to learn what he can from him or anyone, but it's Herger to whom the concept of their difference doesn't seem to matter. He's found since then he has more use for Herger's hands and easy laughter than the woman he once tried not to covet. 

To these men, to Herger and to Buliwyf, he is Ibn, little brother. They don't try to learn his name; it's as foreign to them as theirs are to him and though Herger asked again, once or twice as they sat by the fire, he knows his is not a name that trips off the tongue of the men of the North. Theirs is a language that feels blunter, coarser, its applications limited in a way he feels his own tongue's aren't. He thinks perhaps that when their society evolves their language will then grow to accommodate it, an expansion of vocabulary to include concepts they have not yet embraced. But lying there tonight he realises he's been in error. He's learned their language easily enough but he sees that he still places his own culture higher in intrinsic worth than theirs. He's no higher than these men, he just knows more privilege; they look down at him for his lack of prowess with horse and sword as much as he has them for their lack of learning or curiosity. Their lives and their values differ though day by day he feels his own draw closer to alignment - whether that's necessity or nature, he's not sure. Perhaps he's not one of them but there are times he knows he wishes he were. Tonight, his conceit does not sit well with him. 

So, he closes his eyes and he prays for humility. He can only hope he has the wisdom to receive it. This is the moment he'll change. 

To these men he is Ibn, little brother. Herger picked his name, offhand, that much is true, but perhaps there was more foresight there than either man anticipated; this time with them he has not been himself and has been more himself than ever. He has found himself there in the North, he thinks, amongst these people with an identity he did not expect, but cherishes. He hopes not to fail them, or himself. 

Perhaps he won't sleep tonight; perhaps this night will be his last. But when he leaves, if he lives to leave, he hopes that Ahmed will take Ibn with him. 

 


End file.
